By William Weston
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The lockdowns imposed in many countries around the world in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic led to lots of people finding new ways to occupy their time. For some it was learning a new language, for others it was participating in online events, however, for Rocco, an avid MUNer and soccer fan, and Cassidy, a keen and competitive debater, it was founding a student-run news organization. No Cap News (NCN) creates factual and non-partisan coverage in an aim to combat the dangerous misinformation spread on social media and to try to keep today’s youth informed of current events, whilst not swaying their political opinions.
The Los Angeles based duo, along with their international team of volunteer writers, editors, and managers, create digestible and concise content in an attempt to make current affairs as accessible as possible. One unique project the NCN team have been working on is the COVID-19 updates that they release daily on social media. In addition, the team are currently working on an app in order to make access to unbiased news even easier.
It is the unbiased nature of NCN which makes them so unique, as every NCN story tells multiple perspectives on Political matters, not just one. In several countries, such as the US and India, there has been a huge increase in political polarization in recent years. Rocco explained that this has had an impact on news coverage of political events, as an increasing number of broadcasters litter their news reports with political rhetoric. Additionally, there has been a large increase in misinformation in social media, including during the 2016 US Election and the Brexit Referendum in the UK. Furthermore, Rocco emphasized the need to get the youth, in particular, engaged in politics as more than 45% of eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 US Election, a large amount of whom were under 25.
Since March 2020, when NCN was founded, the organization has grown to reach over 115,000 readers in more than 15 countries. Therefore, creating a global community, which Rocco liked to MUN Impact. Also similar to MUN Impact, are the core values of No Cap News which can be linked closely to the SDGs, in particular SDG 4 (Quality Education) and Target 4.7 (Education for sustainable development and global citizenship). Furthermore, Cassidy explained how, like they did, we can use the SDGs to find a problem which we can try to solve. Once decided on a broad subject area, like an SDG, we should aim to narrow it down to a specific target that we can then use to create a mission and a vision for our organization. After that, the key is to find a team of leaders with diverse and complementary abilities and working with that team to create an online space, such as a website or social media page as a method to share our organization’s message and expand its reach.
No Cap News is a truly inspirational product of a rather dull period of time and a reminder that no matter what is thrown in the youth’s path, they will always find a way to tackle some of the world’s biggest issues, in order to make Planet Earth a better place for all.